From the "No Matter How Young and Newly Rich You Are, There's Always Someone Younger and Newly Richer Coming Up Right Behind You file comes this news that just a few weeks after the preposterously adorable Alabama cattle rancher James (J.T.) Thomas walked off with $1.1 million on Survivor, another even younger cattle rancher has just walked off with a $232 million Powerball lottery jackpot:
If this were a movie, nobody would believe it: A rancher struggling to eke out a living in one of the poorest corners of America claimed one of the biggest undivided jackpots in U.S. lottery history Friday _ $232 million _ after buying the ticket in a town by the name of Winner.
Neal Wanless, 23, said he intends to buy himself more room to roam and repay the kindness other townspeople have shown his family.
"I want to thank the Lord for giving me this opportunity and blessing me with this great fortune. I will not squander it," he promised, wearing a big black cowboy hat and a huge grin.
Wanless, who is single, lives with his mother and father on the family's 320-acre ranch near Mission, where they raise cattle, sheep and horses. They don't own a phone, a mobile home of theirs was repossessed last year, and records show they have fallen $3,552 behind in their property taxes.
Wanless bought $15 worth of tickets to the May 27 30-state Powerball drawing at a convenience store in Winner during a trip to buy livestock feed. He will take home a lump sum of $88.5 million after taxes are deducted.
The Wanless home stands in a grove of trees in Todd County, home to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. It was the nation's seventh-poorest county in 2007, according to the Census Bureau.
At least Thomas had the good sense to give himself credit for his gameplay, rather than deciding that some Great White Alpha Male in the sky moved him like a chesspiece across a TV reality show. But here's a guy -- the kind of guy who would usually give Bill O'Reilly fits because his family was foreclosed on and he spent fifteen bucks on lottery tickets -- who just happens to luck into the winning tickets in a town called Winner.
And what does he do? He has the hubris to think God himself selected him to win this money.
This is a lovely story in which an American family right out of a Dorothea Lange photo gets the kind of break of which most of us only dream. It's the kind of warm, fuzzy story that helps you get through the day. But seriously...what about all the other people facing foreclosure and tough times? God turned his back on them and picked YOU?
I really wish we could have an end to football stars thanking God for catching the pass at a pivotal moment, baseball players pointing to the sky every time they hit a home run, movie stars thanking God for their award statuettes, and on and on and on. It doesn't demonstrate humility before God, it's an announcement of hubris that you are Just So Special that God Himself picked YOU for good fortune.
Don't you think God has more to do than make sure YOU win the lottery? You were lucky. Nothing wrong with that. You sound like a good kid, and your family deserves to finally get a break. Now go enjoy your good fortune. But leave God out of it. He was probably off playing pinochle with Walter Matthau, Paul Newman, and David Carradine (now THERE's an image for you) while you were buying that ticket.
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